A High Strength Hydrogel with a Core–Shell Structure Simultaneously Serving as Strain Sensor and Solar Water Evaporator

Abstract

A super‐strong poly (acrylic acid)‐ poly(3,4‐ethylene dioxythiophene) (PAA‐PEDOT) hydrogel with a unique core‐shell structure is successfully constructed and studied. The shell composed of the conductive polymer PEDOT makes the composite hydrogel possess mechanical strength, electrical conductivity, and photothermal conversion properties, while the PAA hydrogel core ensures the flexibility, recovery, and water absorption of the composite hydrogel. The prepared PAA‐PEDOT hydrogel displays outstanding tensile strength (up to 780 KPa) and satisfactory conductivity (6.6 S m−1). Notably, the flexible strain sensor made of PAA‐PEDOT composite hydrogel presents both high sensitivity (gauge factor up to 8.87) and short response time (<200 ms), demonstrating that the composite hydrogel can accurately and timely detect the movement of human joints. In addition, PAA‐PEDOT composite hydrogel also has excellent photothermal conversion properties and can be used as a highly efficient solar water evaporator, which has a water evaporation efficiency of up to 3.05 kg m−2 h and an excellent photothermal conversion efficiency of 95% under 1‐sun irradiation (1kW m−2). These features make the composite hydrogel has great potential in many fields such as motion sensing, seawater desalination, and wastewater treatment.

Ultra-robust, high-adhesive, self-healing, and photothermal zwitterionic hydrogels for multi-sensory applications and solar-driven evaporation

“…Finally, to demonstrate the advantages of our PSBMA-LM@PDA hydrogels in next-generation hydrogel devices, we compared our PSBMA-LM@PDA-5 hydrogel with previously reported representative hydrogels in terms of tensile strength, self-adhesion, self-healing, strain sensing, pressure sensing, temperature sensing, photothermal, and solar evaporation performance, substantiating that our PSBMA-LM@PDA-5 hydrogel exhibited overwhelmingly comprehensive features over other counterparts 4,19,23,25,78–87 (Table S4, ESI†).…”

Enhancing Strain-Sensing Properties of the Conductive Hydrogel by Introducing PVDF-TrFE

“…It can be concluded that the sensitivity of both the voltage and resistance responses of the Pp-250 improved after mixing the two fillers. Compared with other research results, ,,,,,− the Pp-250 prepared by us has more advantages in response time and recovery time indexes and can achieve a fast and sensitive response (Figure g).…”

A Core–Shell Structured Hydrogel Sponge for Efficient and Long-Term Solar Evaporation

“…52−55 It is widely acknowledged that poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), a conductive polymer with strong light absorption properties, 56 has found extensive applications in solar cells. In our previous study, 57 we devised a method for the in situ polymerization and growth of a PEDOT shell on the surface of the hydrogel. The oxidation polymerization of PEDOT on the surface of hydrogel was achieved by dissolving the monomer EDOT and the oxidizing agent ammonium persulfate in cyclohexane and hydrogel, respectively.…”